Victorious in Putsch, Iran’s Ahmadinejad Now Comes Under Clerics' Counterattack

And much more...

The entire bulletin is available for subscribers. Over the upcoming week we will release analysis from the bulletin to our free Geopolitical Analysis section of the Wikistrat website, first being "Terra Incognita: Arab Spring Forcing US to Choose Between Longtime Allies"

US policy in the Middle East has long been based on a troika of bilateral relationships with Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The relationship with Saudi Arabia was based on the economics of energy, hence Riyadh’s ideological excesses were tolerated – even after 9/11. With Israel, security has always come first, and with Egypt, stability was prized above all else. Now, as Egypt evolves tumultuously and Saudi Arabia deploys its own military muscle in defense of fellow monarchies, it’s clear that Washington will no longer enjoy the same relationship with either, leaving the question of how the Washington-Tel Aviv bond will hold up in the months and years ahead.

President Barack Obama’s 19 May speech appeared – at first blush – to throw a giant monkey wrench into those works: by citing the pre-1967 war borders as the framework for a land swap deal leading to a two-state solution, the president seemed to be putting Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on notice. But subsequent backtracking by Obama in a speech to the powerful pro-Israeli lobby group AIPAC two days later indicated just how unprepared he is to significantly revise this alliance.

To say that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy plate is full right now is a vast understatement, and it couldn’t come at a worse time for a leader who needs to revive his own economy before trying to resuscitate others (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, South Sudan, Ivory Coast – eventually Libya?). Faced with the reality that America’s huge debt overhang condemns it to sub-par growth for many years, Washington enters a lengthy period of “intervention fatigue” that – like everything else, according to the Democrats – can still be blamed on George W. Bush.